The First 100

I'm a big Chick-fil-a fan. During two years of high school I worked at a store in Birmingham while I wasn't mowing grass. Longscape eventually won out in 11th grade. Nevertheless, I still really enjoy their food even though I ate it about everyday those two years. Its my go to place for quick, cheap, and good food. Its a beautifully run company with great Christian values. I kind of baffled other companies haven't tried to copy their business model.

After my years working there they started a promotion called "The First 100." The idea behind it was whenever there was a new store opening, the first 100 customers would receive free Chick-fil-a for a year. The fine print reads 52 #1 meals, so still a good deal. Well, naturally the popularity of this grew tremendously so they had to modify the rules a little to ease early crowds. So the gist of the contest is you have to show up 24 hours before a store opens. It doesn't matter if you get there any earlier than that. So at 6AM everyone who is there registers. If there are less than 100 people, everyone wins. If there are more than 100 people, then they have a drawing and pick 100 people. Those 100 people are winners. So you immediately you know you are a winner, however the contest is just beginning. In order to claim your prize, you have to stay on the property for 24 hours and you can't leave for any reason. They open up the store bathroom and give you some snacks, but other than that you are on your own including sleeping in the parking lot. Then the next morning as the store opens, the winners are the first 100 customers and then they give you your prize.

I had heard of this contest a couple different times, but finally decided to look into it. I found there was a store opening up in downtown Birmingham in a couple months. So I put it on my calendar. That Wednesday morning I went to the location and arrived at 5:15. People started filing in and at 6:00AM they let everyone into the parking lot. I was amazed at the number of repeat contest participants there were. About 75% had already done this before. One guy claimed this was his 44th time. He was a big fan with lots of cow gear. There were 125 people there. Most everyone came in groups and planned to split winnings among the group if not everyone got picked. I was on my own, but still thought my odds were pretty good. Every store opening brings in a specified crew to help, so the whole process was very well run. They started drawing numbers and sure enough mine was called at #73. Kind of cutting it close.

The wrist band we had to wear to indicate we were the chosen ones.

I went into the store and filled out some paperwork. They give us some basic instructions and then take us out in groups to our campsites (or parking spaces). They give you about 30 minutes to get your stuff and park your car for a longer stay since we're downtown. I got all my gear and claimed my space. They wanted two tents per parking space so I shared mine with Dave and Kate. A super nice couple about the same age as me. They looked familiar to me and soon realized we go to the same church. So they were great companions throughout the day. I got my tent set-up and my chair out and got comfortable for the next 23 hours.

Hanging out in the store, waiting for instructions.

My 1/2 of the parking space, right on the edge of the parking lot.

Pictures aren't as exciting when you're by yourself.

Tent city on the north side of the store.

Throughout the day they had role call to make sure you were there. I think only one person left during the course of the day. They fed us three meals, of course Chick-fil-a. I was expecting it to be kind of boring just sitting around all day, but it actually ended up being a lot of fun. Everyone there is in the same boat, but a very diverse group of people. Everyone quickly becomes friends and starts to like the little community. I brought some stuff to occupy myself, but ended up just hanging out with everyone instead. It was a beautiful picture of community and fellowship, rather than isolation.

One of our role calls.

The most enthusiastic participant. He drove from Tampa and claimed this was his 44th store opening.

Chick-fil-a employee who led some of the games.

Our neighbor Kevin. Kevin provided a bunch of laughs throughout the day. He was probably the only person who just happened to be awake walking down the street at that hour of the morning and inquired what was going on. When everyone else went to their cars he ran home and got a sleeping bag and bike. He followed the 2 parking spaces per camper rule. His mom brought him a tent that afternoon. Everyone knew Kevin by the end of the day.

Kevin was real tired since he never went to bed the night before.

That night Rebecca came and joined me. She had to work that day or else she also would have participated. She quickly got acquainted with my corner of the parking lot. That evening they brought in a DJ and had ice cream. We settled into our tents about 11PM. Unfortunately the downtown atmosphere is not real conducive to sleeping outside. Throughout the night there were all kind of noises including trucks, trains, deliveries, drunks yelling, and whistles. This contest isn't for the weak though.

Ice cream with M&Ms

Rebecca amazed by the awesomeness of the day.

She also got a band to indicate she wasn't a chosen one.

Gearing up for the unseasonably cool evening.

I thought camping under a parking lot light would be good for safety. It also meant it was very bright in our tent all night.

Visions of Chick-fil-a dancing through my head.

They woke us up at 5:30 and lined us up for last role call and a t-shirt. We then got to go through the store and get our prize. They wanted us out of the parking lot pretty quick to make way for paying customers. We all said our goodbyes and went back to our routines. I was really tired and then had to go to work, but it was well worth it. I plan on doing more in the future.

Almost time to go inside and get our loot.

Shaking hands with the operator and getting the free stuff.

Dave, Kate, and myself holding our coupons. They came in nugget boxes naturally.

52 big ones. Making it rain.

Not sure if this was a yawn or an excited face.

It ended up being a beautiful morning.

Since it was so pretty we decided to go by the Railroad Park for some pictures since we're never really down there at 6:30 AM

Alabama Theater

DIY - Trommel

An ongoing project in the Longscape world has been the compost bin. Overall it has been a big success. I have a constant supply of material from my work and the conditions for decomposing seem to be doing well. My final product is great stuff, the only problem is it is tremendously time consuming to sift with my current method, which involves a screen and me shaking it back and forth by hand.

I searched online for more efficient methods and found several neat designs on youtube. A trommel is the more official word for what I'm wanting. Not wanting to spend a lot of money on it, I've been looking around for parts for a while. Fortunately David and Matt came through for me on the bike rims. So I finally got started on it this past week during the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee.

Bicycle Rims and Castors

Removing the spokes.

Spokes Removed

The first rim attached to the screen

Two rims

Three rims

Finished rotary screen

One side of the base

The base

First test run. The idea is to add material on the right side. As you spin the trommel, the finished product will fall through while the unfinished material will fall out on the left side back into the original bin.

That's steam coming off the trommel from the compost. It was very warm.

So it's only partially done but I'm pretty happy with how its turning out. I'll probably need to replace the castors with some that fit the rims better. I also need to get a motor so I don't have to turn it by hand. Even at this stage though its still more efficient than my previous screen.

Data Dilemma

We recently had a minor disaster at Rebecca Long Photography. I came home one day to Rebecca telling me that "Fat Bear" (Rebecca gives all of our hard drives names involving a bear) was ejecting itself from the computer. Trying not to panic I examined the situation and came to similar results. All our photos from summer weddings thus far were on the hard drive. Now, we had multiple back-ups of these photos, so completely losing clients photos was never in the picture. However this is the hard drive we were working off of, so all the time put in to sorting and editing on those weddings was potentially lost. I'd estimate about 60 hours of work.

We spent most of that night exploring different options for our situation. I read some forums about similar problems and we tried the drive on different computers ruling out various potential issues. Nothing worked so we figured the drive had "crashed." We then explored various recovery options. They all had one thing in common: expensive. I had no idea about the world of data recovery. It must be much harder than I imagined and not many people doing it.

The next day Rebecca went to a guy here in Birmingham who had a nice website. He ended up running the business out of his home and looked like he had not left his home in a long time. Jorts, unshaven, ratty t-shirt, and open fly were just a few of the first things noticed. He then proceeded to tell Rebecca the doom and gloom of data loss. "Your hard drives will probably only last 6 months and all the things you've been doing have been wrong. At this point I wonder why the manufacturers don't tell you the proper way to use their products. He told Rebecca even he can't do the recovery himself and has to send it off for a mere $1200. We decided to keep looking around. She found a company in Florida that actually does the recovery. She talked to Richard and after her sob story he gave her a quote of $800 if they are able to recover your stuff. We decided it was worth it and sent it off.

In the mean time we decided to revamp our back-up protocol. We purchased a Drobo S. I'm not the best at explaining this, but I think its like a mini server. It has 5 slots for 3.5" hard drives. It uses the RAID technology and automatically makes back-ups of your stuff. So if one of the drives fails, everything is still on the other ones. So we also got four 1.5 terabyte drives to put in it. I also bought a battery back-up for her computer and new storage device in case of a power failure. So $2000 later, we feel more protected and now follow the "3-2-1 back-up method"

• Make 3 backups of everything
• On 2 different types of media
• Take 1 to a different location

With there being lots more digital information and all of it needing to be stored, the ability to do this indefinitely seems like quite a challenge. Hard drives keep getting bigger and files themselves keep getting larger. The fear of losing things can be quite haunting.

All of this was a good reminder on where you store your treasure.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." - Matthew 6:19-20

Breaking Habits

This past Sunday in small group we discussed things we learned about our spouse after marriage that we weren't aware of before. Most things mentioned were funny habits about one another that were usually neither good or bad, just unique characteristics. Rebecca told everyone that I'm kind of a messy eater when we are at home and how you can tell if I enjoyed the meal by how much remained on my face. I mentioned how Rebecca has restless foot syndrome in the morning and will rub her foot back and forth as she wakes up. Aside from bad manners and worn out sheets, no real harm done.

The stories from fellow small groupers reminded me of a lesson I had to learn in relationships. Rebecca and I have been married for over 2 years now and I still have to remind myself of this. Relationships in marriage, family, and friends can sometimes be brutal. I've noticed how easily frustrated people can become with one another the longer they've known each other. A seemingly insignificant thing can cause a huge argument. Sometimes these 'things' are the result of things deemed bad habits. A lot of times these 'bad habits' are not necessarily bad, just annoying to the other person.

I have seen in others and I know I have seen it in my own marriage, that I can let these things build up in me and become such a source of frustration. You marry someone having a pretty good idea who they are, but then there is so much more to learn. While you are dating its hard to find anything wrong with each other, then when you are married some have trouble finding anything good. I mean how often do you hear a person talk good about their spouse when the other is not around. Most of the time its just joking, but there's always some truth to a joke.

So the lesson I've had to remind myself is to not take someone's uniqueness as an annoyance. I married Rebecca because I love the person she is. So why after marriage would I try to change that personality? I think it is our nature to question things that our different than ourselves. So when we are constantly around that difference it starts to bug us. Sure there are things we need to keep each other accountable on and definitely build one another up in love. But I've noticed there are so many indifferent things that seem to bother us the most.

For instance. Rebecca and I differ on our sleep schedule. The nature of my work lends me to go to bed early and get going early to beat the hot portion of the day. Rebecca doesn't really have a set schedule. Her nature is to work real late (often after midnight) and then sleep later than most. It isn't that she is lazy. She actually works more hours than anyone I know. She just likes to sleep at a different range of hours than myself. This use to bother me because I've always been around the conventional wisdom of "early to bed, early to rise" mentality. So if you're sleeping in, then you are lazy and wasting time. The fact is she just works better at night and functions better during the day if she doesn't have to get up early. Why she can't just shift her body clock, I don't know. So rather than letting it bother me, I realized that's just who she is. Her sleep/work schedule is not wrong, its just different than my own. By changing it I'm not making her a better person, just more like myself.

We all have a sin nature so there are going to be things that need correcting from our spouse. But there are also lots of things that don't need changing, because that's just who we are. We are all created uniquely by God and made that way for a reason. We should rejoice in the nature of his creation, not get frustrated at it.

It definitely would be a boring place if we were all the same.